Walter Frederick Osborne, R.H.A. 1859-1903

Estimate

15,000 - 20,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Walter Frederick Osborne, R.H.A.
portrait of nellie o'brien
indistinctly signed with initials l.r., also indistinctly inscribed and dated along the left and right edges: ELLEN (....) / O'BRIEN 87
oil on canvas
45.5 by 37.5cm.; 18 by 14¾in.

Provenance

The sitter, and thence by descent, whence purchased by the present owner

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, Summer Exhibition, 1893, no.980;
Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy, Winter Exhibition, 1903, no.190 or 218.

Literature

T.Bodkin, Four Irish Landscape Painters, Dublin 1920, pp.129 and 147;
L.Robinson, Palette and Plough, Dublin 1948, p.75;
J.Sheehy, Walter Osborne, Dublin 1983, p.30.

Catalogue Note

Nellie was the sister of Dermod O'Brien, the painter and friend of Osborne, and was a close friend of the artist. The present work was painted in 1887, the year Dermod O'Brien registered as a student at the Antwerp Academy where Osborne himself had been a pupil between 1881 - 1883. It seems that there was some sort of attachment between the sitter and the artist, and according to O'Brien's biographer, Lennox Robinson (op.cit. p.75), there was a possible intention to marry. Indeed in a photograph of Dermod O'Brien's own wedding, Osborne and Nellie stand side by side behind the bride. There is a certain warmth and informality in this portrait which is in keeping with other portraits of those he knew best, such as J.B.S.MacIlwaine (Coll.National Gallery of Ireland) and Stephen Gwynn (Private Collection).